Month: December 2011

Christmas Morning

The kids woke up at 6:45. Helena said that they woke up at 6:00 but since I said that they shouldn’t get up until 7:00, they just sat down in the basement on the futon (where they all slept) talking.

Liam seemed a bit excited and a bit underdressed.

Helena was pleased with her Hello Kitty.

The kids’ loot (or as Liam says, “lot”)

I don’t remember what this was all about. I’m sure that it didn’t last long, though. I think she may have begun to open it before she was told to wait for someone else to finish with theirs.

Liam takes a break from opening up presents to put together a Lego game board that Helena bought for him. Thus, he held everyone else up and some of them weren’t too happy about that.

This was the gift to all three kids from Santa.

Ada was happy with her clothes.

Ada was also happy with her accessories (some of which were Helena’s)

Liam’s Letter to Santa

Helena remembered to leave cookies and milk out for Santa after I had just put them to bed, so we got back up and came upstairs (they slept downstairs) to leave them out and I asked the kids if they would like to leave Santa a note. Helena wrote a short thank you note and mentioned that she had helped make the cookies. Ada, who is just beginning to write, said thanks as well. Helena chastised Liam for not writing one, but he said that he left one under the tree. Helena thought that wasn’t too smart, but Liam, being practical, said that since Santa was going to leave presents, he’ll see the letter.

Liam’s letter was about two NFL plays that he saw on television that day. Since I was trying to keep the kids out of the house as much as possible to keep it clean for Santa, we went to a bar/restaurant for lunch where I know that they have plenty of televisions for Liam to watch, which is heaven for him. That’s where he saw the 99 yard reception in the Giants game, and he saw a nice fake handoff executed by the Vikings (of all teams) at Lifetime. He’s convinced that he’ll see them on the top 10 plays of the week, which he periodically will catch in the television section of Target while playing Wii.

Letters to Santa

After putting the kids to bed Helena ran back upstairs to tell me that we forgot to put out cookies for Santa. The chocolate chip cookies that I was going to make couldn’t be made because the oven broke, but luckily I had one batch made earlier.

The kids decided to write letters to Santa, which are here. Along with Santa’s reply…funny that he almost spelled his name wrong.

 

From Box to Stomach in 20 Minutes

The kids decided to put a gingerbread house together. They didn’t exactly take their time, although there were four of them, and soon as it was done they decided that it was time to eat it.

Helena’s friend, Isabella, was over to help.

Liam actually spent some time “painting” one of the sides pretty well. Ada did a good job, too. Helena and Isabella just wanted to make everything scary “with blood”, so they took it much less seriously than the other two. Luckily they all got along despite the fact that some were taking it somewhat seriously and others not much so.

 

Helena Makes Candy

Liam and Ada were mighty impressed with it. She made it yesterday, but I didn’t take a picture of it until this morning. It was actually Liam’s expression that I wanted to get a picture of, but by the time I got my camera out, Ada was making the same face that Liam was earlier.

 

Liam’s Tesselation

Liam is famous for not realizing that he’s had projects to do for weeks and weeks. Dalen tells me the night before it is due, that he’s had a tesselation project that was assigned a month earlier. So Liam had to do the thing in one night. Luckily I had some paper at work, so we did it there and he colored it at home.

Funny how the kids never want to do these projects but when they are done they’re happy as can be about them.